Lying next to the still twitching Karina, Dominic exhaled deeply. After lying there for a moment, Dominic got up and took out his handkerchief from his coat. He carefully wiped the s*men from her lower region and p*bic hair. After placing the wet handkerchief on the table, Dominic covered Karina’s body with the blanket. The blanket was completely disheveled from their lovemaking.

It was time to leave now.

But looking at Karina who was as disheveled as the blanket, somehow, he didn’t feel like leaving right away.

In the end, he lay on her bed and offered his arm as a pillow for Karina.

He wanted to stay by her side just a little longer.

Even the way her small head pressed against his arm with varying pressure as she breathed in and out was pleasant. Though his lower body had hardened again, Dominic shook his head.

Karina’s stamina was already spent. Now it would just be his own greed.

Dominic closed his eyes. In the darkness, only Karina’s breathing could be heard.

It was a perfect night, to the point where he wondered if there had ever been such a satisfying moment in his life.

* * *

“Brigadier General! Brigadier General, wake up!”

Dominic frowned and opened his eyes to the hand shaking him.

“Karina?”

“What? Since when did you start addressing me so casually? No, that’s not the point. Get up right now. Hurry!”

Karina had already changed her clothes. Dominic raised his upper body from the bed. As the blanket covering his body slid down, his taut upper body was clearly revealed.

“Eek!”

Karina threw the clothes she was holding at Dominic.

“Change quickly.”

Finding her embarrassed appearance novel, Dominic stared at her for a while before letting out a small laugh and changing his clothes.

“Where did these come from?”

“I brought them from the guest room. Change and let’s quickly go over to the guest room.”

Only then did Dominic remember where he was. As Dominic’s expression hardened, Karina snapped her fingers in front of his face.

“We don’t have time for this. If someone sees us, it’ll be a huge problem.”

Ah.

How did things end up like this?

She thought it had been a slightly erotic dream. No, actually, it was quite erotic.

With various things happening with Dominic repeatedly, she thought she had just dreamed due to stress. She never imagined she’d actually spent a passionate night with him.

What Karina faced upon waking was a n*ked Dominic sleeping beside her, and her own equally unclothed body. Facing the clothes scattered messily on the floor and the crumpled, disheveled bed sheets, Karina felt dizzy.

But this wasn’t the time to lose her composure. Karina quickly went to the adjacent guest room to gather clothes and came back. Then she woke Dominic up to face this current situation. Watching Dominic’s back as he changed clothes, Karina’s mind went blank.

Karina practically thrust his clothes into Dominic’s arms as he finished changing roughly. Then she hurriedly led him to her room’s terrace.

“Here. Can you cross over?”

Dominic looked at her with bewildered eyes at the suggestion to cross over to the next room’s terrace.

“Do we really need to go this far?”

“We have to. Can you do it or not?”

“…I can.”

Karina pushed Dominic’s back. There was no time to waste. If anyone came into the room, they would see her and Dominic together.

That had to be avoided at all costs. For both her sake and Dominic’s.

“Hurry. Hurry.”

Looking back at the urging Karina, Dominic sighed. He stepped onto the railing, and then his body leaped up swiftly. Watching him land lightly on the next room’s balcony, Karina let out a sigh of relief.

“Now go in and pretend to sleep. Quickly.”

Karina glared at Dominic who was looking at her with dissatisfaction. She felt like she would die of frustration at how he was acting like he wanted to say something.

“If you have something to say, we can talk later when we meet. For now, we need to get through this situation safely.”

At Karina’s response as she stamped her feet, Dominic reluctantly nodded.

“I understand for now.”

“Go inside quickly. We’ll really get caught at this rate.”

Dominic looked at Karina once more with dissatisfaction before going into the room. Only then did Karina let out a deep sigh of relief.

At that moment, there was a knock at the door.

“Miss, are you awake?”

Karina held her breath and covered her mouth. When no movement was detected inside, the maids tilted their heads outside the door.

“Is she not awake yet?”

“She must be tired since she came back late from the ball yesterday. Let’s come back later.”

As the footsteps gradually faded away from the door, Karina finally let out her breath. Then she quietly closed the balcony window without making any sound.

Getting into bed and closing her eyes, Karina thought.

It’s all a dream. None of it happened. It was just an imagination in my head…

“Ahhh!”

Karina, who had been lying in bed, thrashed about and suddenly sat up. She used to love her room’s bed, which was cozy and made her sleepy. But now she couldn’t lie there calmly as yesterday’s events vividly came to mind.

When she woke up at dawn, Karina had been sleeping in Dominic’s arms. Not only had she been using the man’s arm as a pillow, but their n*ked bodies had been pressed tightly together. The sensation of skin contact with Dominic was more distinct than the feel of the bed and blanket, causing her to grab and shake the innocent blanket.

However, no matter how much she raged, yesterday’s events were real.

What’s done was done.

* * *

Several dozen minutes later, when a maid opened the door without knocking to clean the empty room, she screamed in panic upon seeing a man lying in bed. Thanks to this, the Crawford residence was in an uproar from early morning.

The butler immediately reported to the Count after receiving word from the maid that Dominic Winchester was sleeping in the guest room. The Count and Countess opened their eyes wide in surprise. Lucas too stared at the butler with his mouth agape.

“What are you saying? Dominic?”

“I’m not sure of the circumstances… but he was discovered sleeping in the upstairs guest room just now.”

Lucas rushed to the guest room before the butler could finish speaking. When he burst through the door, he saw Dominic sitting up in bed, having regained his senses.

“Dominic? It really is you. What are you doing here?”

Lucas spoke to his friend in surprise. However, Dominic’s expression was very complex. He looked troubled about something.

“…Seems I dozed off.”

Dominic appeared equally flustered by the situation.

“I was waiting a bit to have another drink when you returned.”

He said his memory after that was hazy. Lucas raised his eyebrows.

Had Dominic drunk that much yesterday?

He seemed perfectly fine when he asked him to take Karina home.

“After changing clothes too?”

Dominic had changed into clothes that were hanging in the guest room rather than his own. If he had been waiting for Lucas, there was no reason to change clothes.

“I think… I changed because the clothes were uncomfortable.”

It was a somewhat strange way of explaining his actions.

But such details were trivial. Lucas dismissed Dominic’s words as unimportant as he approached him.

“I heard rumors that you’ve been distracted lately, but to think you’d do something like this.”

Lucas couldn’t help but laugh out loud. He put his hand on his friend’s shoulder and said,

“Get ready and come down. We were just about to have breakfast.”

To think that someone who never made mistakes would do something like this. As Lucas was about to head straight to the dining room, he stopped in his tracks. The room next door was Karina’s room.

This happened because he asked him to take the drunk Karina home yesterday. Lucas knocked on the door without hesitation.

“Karina. You’re up, right?”

Lucas approached to wake Karina who was lying in bed and was startled. His sister’s dazed expression was similar to Dominic’s.

He clicked his tongue and nagged.

“I told you not to drink so much when you can’t handle it. Come out now. It’s breakfast time.”

“Don’t want to.”

“Stop talking nonsense and get ready to come down. We have a guest.”

“A guest?”

Karina asked doubtfully while rubbing her eyes. Thinking her slightly trembling voice was due to not being fully awake, Lucas nodded.

“I asked Dominic to take you home yesterday and he ended up falling asleep here. Who would’ve thought such a thing would happen.”

“I don’t want breakfast.”

“Come down even if you don’t want to eat. It would be rude with a guest here.”

Lucas nagged once more before closing the door. Unable to connect his oddly behaving friend and sister, he hummed a tune. The unexpected situation was merely interesting to him.

* * *